In the field known as “lab-on-a-chip”, electronic, microfluidic and bio processes are combined at chip scale to bring dramatic productivity and cost benefits to fields as diverse as high throughput screening, bio-molecular assays and point of care diagnostics.
Fabrication technologies are known that have been developed in the microelectronics industry and then applied to biotechnology and biomedical industries. However, compared to electronic based devices, biotechnology devices are much more diverse in order to enable the manipulation of a large variety of bio materials, fluids and chemicals. Improvements in performance, throughput and cost have been achieved by reducing the size and volume in miniaturised biosystems.
These “Lab-on-a-chip” solutions have increased the amount of functionality per apparatus by miniaturisation. The problem with increased miniaturisation is the complexity of smaller scale processing and the large cost of equipment for microfabrication. Furthermore, conventional lithographic and etching processes adopted from the microelectronics industry require rigid apparatuses.
Glass apparatuses for microfluidic applications are known, such as the LabCHIP from Caliper Technologies Corp (Mountain View, Calif.), U.S. Pat. No. 6,274,089. The glass apparatus is attached to a plastic moulded cartridge which incorporates wells for loading test samples, reagents and gel.
Rigid plastic apparatuses are known, such as the LabCard from Aclara Biosciences Inc (Mountain View, Calif.), U.S. Pat. No. 6,103,199. A tooling process involving patterning and electroplating is used to create embossed microchannels on the card surface.
“Lab-on-a-CD” devices such as from Gamera and Gyros use centrifugal force of a rotating disk as the microfluidic pumping mechanism, e.g., Gamera Bioscience Corporation (Medford, Mass.), U.S. Pat. No. 6,063,589.
The above are all discrete devices which require further handling steps for continuous operation. They are also inefficient for single test operation.
Silicon apparatuses are known, such as the eNanogen chip, which is a microfluidic microarray device, where the microarray is selectively doped with biological or chemical probes which can be polarised electrically to attract or repel molecules from the sample material under test.
For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,858,195 to Lockheed Martin Energy Research Corporation (Oak Ridge, Tenn.) describes a microchip laboratory system and method to provide fluid manipulations. The microchip is fabricated using standard photolithographic procedures and etching, incorporating an apparatus and rigid cover plate joined using die bonding. Capillary electrophoresis and electrochromatography are performed in channels formed in the apparatus. Analytes are loaded into a four-way intersection of channels by electrokinetically pumping the analyte through the intersection.
These approaches require time consuming additional steps of picking and placing discrete apparatuses which increases the overall processing cycle time in microfluidic applications.
“MicroTape™—A 384 Well Ultra High Throughput Screening System” Journal of the Association for Laboratory Automation, May 1999: Volume 4, Number 2, p. 31, Astle, T. W., teaches of a tape device designed for storage of liquid compounds in smaller volumes (typically 10 ul) than the industry standard 96 or 384 well micro-titer plate (MTP). Tape storage is in a pattern identical to a 384 well MTP. In effect, MicroTape™ is an alternative passive storage medium to the micro-titer plate.
The primary features of MicroTape™ are:    1) bulk compounds typically stored in 96 or 384 well micro-titer plates can be transferred into a smaller volume storage medium, i.e. the MicroTape™, and then stored within the medium for future use at low temperature. When this array of compounds is required for test, only one section of tape (i.e. a 384 well section) need be retrieved and defrosted, rather than the whole of the bulk compound medium.    2) the MicroTape™ incorporates a separate sealing membrane to protect the compound during storage. This membrane is capable of being de-sealed and re-sealed.    3) use of MicroTape™ for Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) processing. The concept takes a reel/roll of MicroTape™ and uses alternate immersion in hot and cold water tanks to perform thermal cycling for the PCR process.
The limitations of this approach are:                It's well capacity is 10 ul which is much larger scale than lab-on-a-chip.        It is not patterned microfluidic channels.        It is not analytical, i.e. does not incorporate gels or analytes through which molecular separation or purification can be accomplished.        It is not electrically active, i.e. incorporating electrical elements or interfacing with electrical elements i.e. it is simply a carrier.        The PCR processing is performed on the whole reel rather than on selectable areas or segments of the tape.        
In the contemporary art of gel electrophoresis, including the emerging field of miniaturised systems, a common means of detection is to capture an image of these layers using electro-optical means. A convenient method is to use a 2 dimensional CCD (Charged Coupled Device) detector array (an area array) to capture the appearance of the permeation layer area in a single “snapshot” image. Another convenient method is to use a 1 dimensional CCD array (a line array) and move it relative to the permeation layer such that the full image is built up from many adjacent line images.
It would be advantageous to provide an apparatus for microfluidic applications that allowed an increased area for microfluidic processing, without requiring an increase in miniaturisation and the associated complexity of processing.
It would be further advantageous to provide an apparatus for microfluidic applications that facilitated loading and transport of analytes and reagents both during and after apparatus fabrication.
It would be further advantageous to provide an apparatus that allowed continuous processing of a moving apparatus.
It would be further advantageous to provide an apparatus that allowed a variable area on one apparatus, while using a fixed size of apparatus handling mechanism.
It would further be advantageous to integrate information storage and management systems within or on the apparatus for use with simple detection methods.
It is an object of at least one aspect of the present invention to provide an apparatus for microfluidic applications.
It is a further object of at least one aspect of the present invention to allow an increased area for microfluidic processing and novel dynamic processing steps both within and of the apparatus, while using simple fabrication processes and apparatus handling techniques.
In this document, a probe is defined as including mechanical probes, electrical probes and pipettes for fluidic manipulation.
In this document, indexing patterns are defined as including patterns for facilitation mechanical movement, detection of position, detection of movement, and display and recording of information.